At length the Greeks began to put themselves in motion. As they advanced, they accelerated their march more and more, until just before reaching the Persian lines, when they began to run. The astonishment of the Persians at this unexpected and daring onset soon gave place, first to the excitement of personal conflict, and then to universal terror and dismay; for the headlong impetuosity of the Greeks bore down all opposition, and the desperate swordsmen cut their way through the vast masses of the enemy with a fierce and desperate fury that nothing could withstand. Something like a contest continued for some hours; but, at the end of that time, the Persians were flying in all directions, every one endeavoring, by the track which he found most practicable for himself, to make his way to the ships on the shore. Vast multitudes were killed in this headlong flight; others became entangled in the morasses and fens, and others still strayed away, and sought, in their terror, a hopeless refuge in the defiles of the mountains. Those who escaped crowded in confusion on board their ships, and pushed off from the shore, leaving the whole plain covered with their dead and dying companions.
Results of the battle.
Numbers slain.
The Greeks captured an immense amount of stores and baggage, which were of great cost and value. They took possession, too, of the marble blocks which the Persians had brought to immortalize their victory, and built with them a monument, instead, to commemorate their defeat. They counted the dead. Six thousand Persians, and only two hundred Greeks, were found. The bodies of the Greeks were collected together, and buried on the field, and an immense mound was raised over the grave. This mound has continued to stand at Marathon to the present day.
The field of Marathon.
The mound.
The battle of Marathon was one of those great events in the history of the human race which continue to attract, from age to age, the admiration of mankind. They who look upon war, in all its forms, as only the perpetration of an unnatural and atrocious crime, which rises to dignity and grandeur only by the very enormity of its guilt, can not but respect the courage, the energy, and the cool and determined resolution with which the little band of Greeks went forth to stop the torrent of foes which all the nations of a whole continent had combined to pour upon them. The field has been visited in every age by thousands of travelers, who have upon the spot offered their tribute of admiration to the ancient heroes that triumphed there. The plain is found now, as of old, overlooking the sea, and the mountains inland, towering above the plain. The mound, too, still remains, which was reared to consecrate the memory of the Greeks who fell. They who visit it stand and survey the now silent and solitary scene, and derive from the influence and spirit of the spot new strength and energy to meet the great difficulties and dangers of life which they themselves have to encounter. The Greeks themselves, of the present day, notwithstanding the many sources of discouragement and depression with which they have to contend, must feel at Marathon some rising spirit of emulation in contemplating the lofty mental powers and the undaunted spirit of their sires. Byron makes one of them sing,
Song of the Greek.
"The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For, standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave."